


Breath Mask

by Zoya1416



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Breathing, Dysfunctional Family, F/M, Komarr, No Air, Triple Drabble, not breathing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-11
Updated: 2016-06-11
Packaged: 2018-07-14 12:03:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7170293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zoya1416/pseuds/Zoya1416
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On Komarr, Ekaterin never takes breathing for granted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breath Mask

**Author's Note:**

> This is a prose poem about the events of Komarr using the imagery of breath and air, particularly as Ekaterin's experiences. It is a close homage to the VKverse and to LMB. The words are almost 100% LMB's, with a trim or two, but it's derivative in selection and emphasis. I find it most effective to breathe or hold breath as per the piece. Triple drabble.

Can't breathe.  
It was all indoors here on Komarr, really. She hadn't felt wind in her hair for nearly a year.

 

Can't breathe.  
She pretended to doze in postcoital lassitude, till his snores assured her he was asleep. Then she went to the bathroom to cry.

 

Breathe.  
“You owned a real jumpship. Yourself? Nikki inhaled alarmingly.  
“Mm, me and a bunch of creditors” Miles smiled in reminiscence. 

 

Can't breathe.  
“Vorkosigan...?  
“Yes?”  
“I'm almost out of oxygen.”

“Didn't you check?” No, he hadn't checked anything about it. 

 

Can't breathe.  
Vorsoisson might have had a full twenty or thirty minutes more oxygen if he had hunkered down quietly.  
Miles stood very still, and breathed very shallowly, and shivered in the cold.

 

Can't breathe.  
Tien's body, which had breathed beside her in this space last night, must be in the hands of the ImpSec medical examiner, by now.

 

Can't breathe.  
She put it in writing, hoping it would not appear too cold.  
An accident with a breath-mask, which Tien had failed to check.  
Ekaterin could not help imagining her own feelings, in some future scene, if she entrusted Nikki to his bride with all bright promise only to have him returned to her later as a heap of ashes in a box.

 

Breathe.  
“Think you'll have any trouble at school tomorrow?” said Miles.  
“Naw.” The tone of his monsyllables had returned to its normal preadolescent adult-wary indifference; no more of the breathy panicked edge of this morning.

 

Can't breathe.  
“Don't make me stun you,” Arozzi was pleading with someone. “I will.”  
“I believe you,” came Aunt Vorthys' breathless voice.

 

BREATHE !

The bell burst like—like a flowerpot.

Ekaterin caught her breath and looked around the control booth. 

“Hello, Emergency, my name is Ekaterin Vorsoisson.

 

Breathe...  
“The next number up,” he breathed, “is 'one.'''

**Author's Note:**

> A friend of mine more or less challenged me to write canon VKverse. Rare, I know! Thanks to a_shepherd


End file.
